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I Forge Iron

Stuff.....tools laying in the shop..Use 'em or sell 'em???


rthibeau

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Had a friend in IL who has passed away that used to sell a lot of tools tailgating at blacksmith conferences. Most hammer heads were marked at $3. Whenever anyone would try to talk him down on price he would tell em "the HOLE is worth a dollar! Let's see you make that hole for a dollar". :D

One thing I did unload a few years ago was all of my top and bottom swages and fullers. Do most of that work with spring tools and they were just taking up space. Figured any I might need in the future I could make. Kept one 3/4" swage I use at the anvil for rolling up candle cups and I have two swage blocks.

Now of course I have nooooooooo extra anything in my shop :D

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My rule is NEVER sell tools, period. I have sold a few things in the past that I thought I would never need. It never fails, one day I end up kicking myself. Right now I've got one shop I work out of, and another 12x16 building that stores tools that never get used. Even though I may think I'll never use some of them, it costs nothing to keep them.

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my problem or non problem is i keep upgrading .
start with a rivett forge end up building a better forge, what to do with the rivett forge .
i want to forge at night without lighting a fire so i build a michael porter type bottle forge . now i have a rivett forge , nc whisper baby{i got for a song} a handbuilt coal forge and my handbuilt gas forge.
start out with a h.f anvil end up with a 300 pound fisher and three others that went down the pike , but still have the hf and the fisher
i cant believe the stuff one can aquire in a little over a year
my dilemma is that after a while i forget what tools i have so i aquire more of the same .
i love tools but how do you STOP THIS MONSTER , meaning me the tool collector

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good thing this is a hobby for me , becuase if it was a business i would be out of business .
never made a nickel on blacksmithing , except tools i have made and sold to blacksmiths
but i sure have a lot of tools , you would think i was a pro .
same goes for my woodworking tools , a cabinet maker would blush at my collection
however i don't have the skill just the tools .
as a machinist in a shop the owner of my shop would fire me if i spent that kind of time and energy on tools.
i could here him now ,
" chuck you are missing the point , we are here to make a profit not build a super shop"
and i would reply " ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh , i get it , it is a money thing "

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I can readily identify with the *tool collector*, (I'm one myself!)
I once bought a large pair of tongs from a guy at the flea market for $5.
They're 'rail road track tongs! The kind two track workers would use to carry a section of track.
They won't fit anything else but sections of track.

No....they're not for sale.

You never know when they might come in handy!

Might want to move a whole bunch of *track* anvils someday...........

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Tongs Thongs and Tool collecting...The collection of tools to the point of poverty goes back to the Greek Gods. One has only to Google pictures of Vulcan at the forge to see that, for a blacksmith and his family, clothing is optional. Here we see Venus and her children begging Vulcan for food , "if only you would sell that extra anvil from HF...." no wonder she ran off with Mars, also note, the passing down of the "tool gene" to the male offspring who is wielding his first tool in spite of his starvation.

a nice site for old shop pics A Gallery of Early Blacksmithing

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It seems there is sufficient evidence presented here to formulate a theory about "Shop Gravity".......as more steel and tools are gathered into one shop, the additional metal mass increases the pull of gravity within the shop, thereby attracting even more steel and tools making an ever growing gravitational force which, in some cases, approaches the power of a Black Hole in that nothing ever escapes back out of the shop. Examples of this may be found in places like Virginia, Minnesota, and Texas.

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It seems there is sufficient evidence presented here to formulate a theory about "Shop Gravity".......as more steel and tools are gathered into one shop, the additional metal mass increases the pull of gravity within the shop, thereby attracting even more steel and tools making an ever growing gravitational force which, in some cases, approaches the power of a Black Hole in that nothing ever escapes back out of the shop. Examples of this may be found in places like Virginia, Minnesota, and Texas.


I think your own to something here...all that weight in the northern hemisphere no doubt has changed the angle of tilt of earth to the sun and has caused gobal warming
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